Hey ya'll, I'm back with more. Mandy's
un-funny in this chapter; I apologize. I'm coming back from a
recent bout of depression myself, so I'm sorry for the long delay
and lack of humor. Enjoy :D

Every person, at some
point in their life, has some experience that just causes them to
stop dead in their tracks, their jaw hanging open, and stare, feebly,
at some wonder that lies before them, be it man made or natural. Or,
supernatural. Mine was the last one. Sure, I'd met a couple of
vampires, and I was currently the devil's plaything, accompanied by
the Grim Reaper and her posse of assistants, which included the
half-angel-man-thing I was standing next to at current moment, but,
you know, this kind of topped it off.

I was forced to take a step backward as some
lurking Minotaur creature lunged by me, letting out an awful cry
before taking another step. A passing angel, one who distinctly
reminded me of Angelica, shook her head and frowned. She fanned out
her wings after it passed her, before darting across the aisle. I
watched her move, an effortless glide across the floor, unaware that
she was staring at me as well.

Alarmed, I looked around. There were more
creatures, more uglies, more pretties, more weird things, gathering
around me. They all fell silent, staring at me like I was an
endangered panda or something. At least, I didn't think I looked
like Ling-Ling or something.

The angel I'd been watching took a step toward
me, her wings fluttering slightly. I scanned above her head for a
halo, and found none, but that didn't mean anything, I guess.
"You…You're Mandy Hoff, aren't you?"

I nodded. The angel let out a snort, almost of
disbelief, of laughter.

Vincent pulled me out of the crowd, afraid I'd
start a riot or something. Smart man. "Aren't angels supposed to
be nice?" I asked him as he pulled me out of the fray.

"No, why?"

"Oh."

He led me down an aisle of booths, advertising
new caskets, funeral homes, parts of scythes, robes, etc, etc. I
hadn't thought that there was this much marketing in death, but
apparently ad men have their place in the afterlife as well. Just as
long as there were no lawyers. "She should be around here
somewhere…" he said to himself, while I simultaneously wondered,
who?

A woman's voice cut the crowd. "Vincent!
Vincent sweetie!"

Aww, how adorable. He located the sound of the
voice, a small, plump woman in a maroon suit, one from a very early
time that I couldn't recognize. She was in her forties, maybe
fifties, with an ear to ear grin that could only mean one thing.

It was his mother.

"Oh, Vincent," she said, her voice low and
full of excitement to the brim, "I've missed you so much."

"Hi, ma," he said, reaching out and hugging
her. She only came up to his shoulders, her stout body wrapping a
pair of small arms around his waist. The hug was over faster than it
had began. She turned her attention to me. "So you're Mandy,
then?"

"Yes'm," I replied. She put a hand on my
shoulder, and I found she was still even shorter than I was. She
barely topped out at five feet, her hat giving her an extra inch or
so, maybe a smidge more due to the tacky hat pin.

"Walk with me, dear," she said to Vincent,
nudging him along. I followed suit, strangely aware of the stares and
gaping faces watching me, like I was a liger or some circus freak.
"So how are things up there? You never call me anymore, Vincent.
How's Ryell? And Lucifer? I'm surprised he didn't come this
year-"

Vincent slowed down. "Ma, he hasn't come in
almost sixty years. And Ryell's fine; I think she went to talk to
Charon again…"

"Well, how have you been, then?" she pressed.

"I…I've been fine." He seemed unusually
uncomfortable around his mother, but perhaps it was just because I
was witnessing how much of a mama's boy he really was. She held him
at arm's length, frowning as she studied him up and down.

She pinched the sides of his suit, pulling up the
slack. "You've lost weight," she said, her voice falling.
"You're pitifully thin, Vince. Haven't you been eating
properly?"

"Ma," he started to protest. I was saved from
watching him flounder in the masculinity he was rapidly oozing by a
tap on my shoulder. I turned around, startled, expecting Ryell or Ed.

But what I got was a boy, a little older than me,
clad in a black robe and holding a scythe. He had on a pair of
glasses, which he took off, almost dramatically, holding them in his
hand. "You're Mandy Hoff, right?"

"Yes…" I answered. I really needed a name
tag or something. People kept asking that damn question.

"The one with Lucifer, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

He shook his head, scoffing. "You don't
deserve it."

Please be kind, rewind. "What?" I asked.

"You don't deserve to be treated like
that. You don't deserve the little throne this community puts you
on. You don't even have your scythe yet." Okay, other than the
fact that he was yelling at me, I was pretty cool with this guy. And
the fact that I got a scythe. Come on, man. I'd have killed for one
in high school.

He shoved by me, decking me in the side. Mandy
Hoff, however, does not let that stand. I used my fist and hit him in
the gut as he stepped past me. I saw him double over, and shot him a
sneer. "Listen, pal," I spat, "I don't know what's gotten
your panties in a bunch, but I died, just the same as you. And that
means I don't have to take your shit."

I felt Vincent's presence over my shoulder, as
he stared down at the kid I'd just whalloped. He gave me a mildly
shocked look, but I only shrugged. I turned away and started to walk
down another aisle, passing a booth for some new scythe grip tape,
with Vincent and his mother following. A few people and creatures had
turned to look, watching me go by again.

The kid was starting to get up, holding onto his
scythe. "You don't deserve any of it, Hoff!" he called after
me. "You don't deserve Lucifer!"

My blood ran cold.

What did he mean? I didn't "deserve"
Lucifer? I didn't deserve a rich, flamboyant, gay, narcissistic
whoreboy? None of Lucifer's redeeming qualities were coming to mind
at present moment, in case it didn't show.

All I could think about, however, was the way he
said it, like he was in love with Lucifer. Just how many boys had
Lucy seduced, anyway? I should start a tally.

"Any clue who that was?" I asked Vincent. He
shot a glance at his mother, who tilted her head in an expecting way.

"Ryell will explain," was all he said.

---

I managed to peg down the elder Reaper as she
hopped the elevator back to our rooms. Vincent had gone off to spend
quality time with his mum, and I'd decided to meander up to my
room. My head was starting to hurt, and I was hungry, and there was
apparently no food court here.

She held the door open for me as I hopped inside,
and pressed the little plastic button for our floor. The doors
closed, and the elevator started up.

"How was your first day?" she asked me.

"Fine," I lied. "Listen, I have a
question?"

She raised her eyebrows in a curious sort of
manner, her lips pursing slightly, and her black hair falling into
her face. "Hm?"

"Do I get a scythe?" I asked, rather frank,
praying that the answer was yes silently in my mind. Please be yes,
please be yes, please be yes.

She nodded, the black mop-top shaking slightly.
"Yes. On the last day of the convention, we give out the scythes."

Wait, what? Please do explain.

"Each year, we recruit more reapers of all
ages. We start the actual year from the end of the convention, so any
Vulture who died from the day after the convention all the way to the
day before the next year's convention are lumped together, like a
graduating class. On the last day, we award the scythes out to the
newcomers. It's just a sign that you're a Vulture. Purely
decorative."

She nodded again. "And you'll get one at the
end of the 2007 convention."

Sexy. I couldn't wait.

Now it was time for another Stupid Question. "So
I'm one of the youngest Vultures of this class, aren't I? Since I
only died a few days before the Con?"

Her head bobbed up and down in another nod.
"Naturally, we have some Vultures who have been around almost a
full year before they get a scythe. Others, just a day."

I bit my lip. So I was once again the lowest guy
on the totem pole. Great. And I thought being a freshman was as a bad
as it could get. Now I was the bottom rung on the death ladder.
"Ryell," I began with Stupid Question Number Three, "did they
have the convention when you died?"

She smiled, and laughed. "No, of course not.
They had a small festival every year, kind of a religious thing. That
was when they handed out the scythes." Her posture straightened up,
stiffening, not in a cold way, just in a reminiscing way. "Of
course, mine's not made of the fancy-schmancy materials they use
nowadays, but it holds together."

The elevator came to a stop, at my floor, and I
backed out, slowly, Ryell staring at the floor. "Night," I said,
turning away, but catching a glimpse of her as she reached into the
pocket of her pants, pulling out an old necklace, one of yellowed
teeth two inches long, spaced between shells and other old, browning
things. It looked as though it belonged in the Smithsonian. But then
again, it probably could have. This was Ryell.

"Good night, Mandy," she said, smiling at the
end.

The elevator doors shut, leaving me standing in
the middle of the deserted hallway. I bit my lip, wondering what
Vincent was doing at current moment, but I decided to just forget
about him, and Ryell, and most importantly, Lucifer. What was he
doing right now? Sitting down to lunch? Going out with Eric? Or still
asleep?

Option three seemed viable. I didn't really
know what time it was up on the surface world, having been down here
for what felt like forever. Now I knew what people meant with all
that "eternal damnation" stuff. An hour down here felt like a
million years.

I walked, somewhat downtrodden, back to my room,
finding the key in my pocket and unlocking the door, pushing it open
to reveal its contents just the way I'd left them. There was still
a lonely feeling hanging about the room, but I knew it to be
superficial, since I had more friends in death than I'd ever
possessed in life. A part of me, however, yearned for stupid people
like Kyo, whom I could make fat jokes about only to have her agree. I
felt like I'd just been ripped out of one life and crudely taped
into another. Couldn't Lucifer have at least used a glue-stick?

I rubbed my temples as I sat down on the bed,
despite the fact I had no headache. I rarely got them, but when I
did, all hell broke loose.

Reaching over to my suitcase, I unzipped one of
the pouches, the one I thought I'd put my toothbrush in. Instead, I
got a photograph, folded in half, with a date and a name on it. I
opened it, revealing a picture of a happy couple.

Lucifer.

With Madelyn.

They weren't laughing; the picture was too old,
and judging from the date, the exposure would have taken close to
five minutes. Subjects didn't smile back then. That was why
everyone looked unhappy in the Civil War era. Well, that plus the
war.

I flipped it over. Madelyn Henloff, May 9th,
1877, was written neatly on the back, in Lucifer's spidery
writing. I'd never been much for anagrams, but there was
something...something about the name that bothered me.

Reaching on the desk, I grabbed a notepad and a
pen, the kind that were in all hotels, standard procedure, like the
bibles in the dresser-drawer. "Mandy…Ellen…Hoff…" I
whispered to myself as I wrote my name down on the paper. "Now,
M…A…D…" I scratched the letters off one by one. Until, I was
left with nothing. Except for the words, "Madelyn Henloff."

Strangely enough, it didn't shock me. Instead,
I took the photograph, and headed to the mirror, to see my reflection
to the living. I held up the photo for reference.

We were almost the same person. The face, mine a
bit younger, was long and slender, with big eyes and a dainty nose.
My hair was cropped short, layered; hers long and flowing. But the
resemblance was striking.

Lucifer was re-creating Madelyn.

And I was the catalyst.

---

I didn't sleep that night. I wasn't expecting
to. Instead, I was up most of the night with pains in my chest and a
tingling feeling in the back of my head. This was it. I wanted to
throw up and call it quits and go home. I wasn't cut out to be a
Vulture; my rep with Lucifer was killing any allies I might have
made. And I wasn't even cut out for Lucifer- he had to sculpt me
into his poltergeist-of-a-girlfriend to like me.

I tossed and turned, tired but not tired enough
to sleep, caught in this stupid lullaby state between my
semiconscious mind and reality. So when I started to hear the hustle
and bustle of other residents as they started their morning routines,
I got up, showered, and dressed. It was done with cold apathy and
hatred for Lucifer, and for all of them, for not telling me what they
had to have known.

Or maybe they didn't. I mean, Vincent hadn't
been alive when Madelyn was; he couldn't have spotted the signs.
And Ryell had tried to take me away from Lucifer; I couldn't really
blame her. So that left the fault squarely on Lucifer.

I wandered aimlessly around on my second day at
DeathCon, finding the stares and gawking all the more usual. I
shrugged it off and pretended to look at the nearest thing to me,
with was usually some sort of scythe polish or stain remover for the
enchanted robes. It was like the Resolve from hell, literally, since
it described all the undead gunk and goodies it could take off
(minotaur snot? I didn't know such a thing existed). And I wonder
how good scythe polish would have worked on, say, a car.

I picked up a brochure on scythe management at
some stand, and a woman recognized me and handed me a basket full of
maintenance products, telling me over and over that it was on the
house when I explained that I couldn't pay her. The money down here
was different, too. Hopefully I could find a currency exchange or
something. I still had almost forty bucks left over from my shopping
trip at Jewel.

But maybe sales tax was high in Hades. I mean,
especially if everything was imported, like Hawaii. Strangely enough,
there were chickens running rampant on those islands, and yet it cost
you an arm and a leg to buy frozen chicken breast.

There were no chickens running rampant down here,
however.

The day didn't really pick up until I bumped
into Ryell as the lady was giving me the basket of goods. I was
standing next to an elder man, gray hair, George Clooney look to him,
who was in the next booth over, reading some pamphlet or other. I
didn't pay attention. But then Ryell appeared, seemingly out of
thin air, but I knew it would have been hard to miss her otherwise.

She had on a black and white skull T-shirt, with
bluejeans that had little dangly charms on them, like chains, with a
pair of Converse All-Stars, black with a red pattern on them. Her
hair was done in its normal style, but she had on thick black
eyeliner, pulled out around her eyes, almost like that old Egyptian
style.

Ironically, I wasn't the first one to notice
her; the guy next to me was. He straightened up, standing, a
sharklike grin on his face. "Ryell," he began in a smooth, slick
voice that was reminiscent of an old leather chair in a library.
"It's good to see that you could make it this year."

"Nice to see you too, Charles."

He set down the pamphlet. "Such a shame Lucifer
couldn't make it. Although, from what I hear, he's a wreck now."

Ryell shrugged. "He's doing just fine," she
corrected. "You can't believe all the rumors you hear, you know."
She grinned. "Now if you'll excuse us," she said, putting a
hand on my shoulder despite the fact that she was four inches shorter
than I.

"Just one more thing," he said. "Have you
heard the rumor that Lucy's being demoted? They're supposedly
looking for a new Vulture to take his spot."

Ryell scoffed. "I'm pretty sure you started
it, Charles."

Oooh. Burn. Charles looked at her with a look
that spelled, "bitch," to a t. Ryell stared back with one that
read, "Bring it."

It was so on.

She sighed. "Now if you'll excuse me," she
said, sneering, "Mandy and I have to go meet someone."

We did?

Whatever. It got me away from the jerk, so I
limped off with triumphant fossil Ryell, parading Charles' wounded
pride like an animal skin draped on her shoulder. I checked her
neckline, making sure there wasn't a lion skin across them, but all
I saw was that funny necklace she'd had the other night, the one
with the teeth and the bits of shell. Except now she was wearing it.

"Who are we going to meet?" I asked
sheepishly.

"Your mom." The reply was blunt, but I knew
she was joshing me. "We're not meeting anyone. Charles is a
pompous buffoon, in case you haven't noticed."

That mean she liked him. Ryell had a crush. It
was just like being in kindergarten again. Now I wanted to
fingerpaint, have a snack, and then it was naptime.

"Are you in competition with him, or
something?" I asked.

She stopped dead in her tracks. "As a matter of
fact, I am." She opened her mouth, and I knew story-time was
coming. Please let it not be too boring. "We're two of the oldest
Vultures out here, and he's been jealous of me ever since the
start. You see, Lucifer was my teacher, and later, my partner. And
Lucifer's always been one of the top dogs around here, right up
there with Hades, Anubis, Set and Yama."

There was a pause in the story, probably because
she had seen the fact that my eyes were as wide as saucers. "They're
normal people, Mandy. Anubis doesn't have a dog head or anything."

Damn.

"Anywho, Charles always thought himself the
better Vulture. Throughout history he's tried to show me up." She
shrugged. "Never quite did, though. The bastard needs to just learn
that he's a damn good Vulture himself. I have respect for him,
although it shrinks every time he tries to pass me up."

That little part of the story was fine except for
one detail. "Throughout history?" But then it hit me. I'd
thought Vincent had seen a lot. Ryell was thousands of times worse.
She had seen the pyramids of Egypt built. The Roman rise and fall.
The golden age of Athens. The Middle Ages. The Renaissance. The
Protestant Reformation. The Age of Exploration. The list just didn't
end. I had images of her wearing Egyptian garb, Roman togas, medieval
dresses, to her most recent outfit.

What was it like to see any and every important
milestone in the rise of man?

Basically, how 'ya been doin' this past six
thousand years?

I shook my head. Ryell looked over her right
shoulder suddenly. The crowd was picking up, chattering loudly, and
reforming, surrounding something like a bubble. Whatever that
something was, it was headed toward Ryell and myself. At that
instant, every ugly looking demonic thing I had seen here flashed
into my head, except with one alteration- now it was coming to kill
me. "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father.
Prepare to die."

Kind of a stupid quote to have in your
head if you were about to die.

But I was already dead. So it was okay. What's
the worst that could happen?

More and more people parted the crowd, whispers
and talk rushing along the grapevine.

"Is that really
him?"

"My, he looks awful."

"I never thought
he looked like that."

People backed away,
revealing a twenty-foot berth around someone/something. And knowing
my luck, that someone or something was someone or something I
wouldn't want to meet again. But then again, my life had taken a
hundred and eighty degree turn (kind of ironic because a hundred and
eighty degrees was a straight line, thank you very much) since I'd
died. I needed to stop calling it "my life." It was more like,
"my afterlife."

Kinda sounded like a
bad TV show or something…

My feet cemented
themselves to the ground, just like they had when the taxi hit me,
turning into marble sculptures fused into a base. I swallowed,
watching Ryell to see what she did, which was apparently stand there
and wait. Ryell might have been alive for an eon or two, but that
didn't make her smart. The little claxon inside my head was
beeping, and the tiny people running around my brain like it was the
bridge of the Starship Enterprise were all fleeing for their lives.

"Ryell, what is it?"
I asked her.

"It's not a what,"
she said, "but a who."

Hot damn. At least it
was somewhat human.

The last layer of
people split, moving like the cell wall in the biology video on
exocytosis. And I saw the lone figure, limping, half hunched over,
dripping wet and oozing a reddish trail with each footstep. And that
lone figure happened to own a funeral home and a BMW and had a
boyfriend named Eric.

He looked up at me, and
he smiled.

Damn it, Lucifer.

---

Ten minutes later found
me in the elevator with him, canvassing the lurid form before me. His
hair was matted and wet, so it must have still been raining in NY
above me. His face looked more gaunt than it usually did, with dark,
tired, gray circles under his blue eyes. He didn't speak as I
pressed the button to close the doors, just kept clutching his side
and sort of doubling over. "Lucifer," I began, "why'd you
come down here?"

He looked at me with
sorry eyes. "I wanted to see you." There was a grimace, and he
began to fall, leaning on the wall and groaning, his body sliding
downwards. I grabbed him before he could hit the floor, supporting
his surprisingly light frame on my shoulders. His thick brown jacket
shifted away from his side, and I could see that it was entirely red.
Red with blood red. A ugly red.

It had dripped and
oozed everywhere, down his jeans, all over his blouse and his jacket
(at least the inside, which was probably why I didn't notice it
before), his shoes- there was even a thick smatter on his face and
neck.

"My God," I
whispered. "What happened?"

"Tell you later,"
he said, smiling weakly. He started to cough, more or less to vomit,
thick, sticky blood flowing past his teeth and down his chin,
staining his shirt. Whatever happened to him, it was serious. Very,
very serious. I mean, Lucifer was immortal, but right now it looked
as though he was just about to buy the farm.

I fished in my pocket
for a Kleenex, finding none, and watching him wipe his mouth on his
shirtsleeve. Note to self- don't touch the brown jacket from now
on.

He coughed again,
violently, just as the doors opened and I ushered him down the
hallway, his feet barely able to compose steps, stumbling and
staggering, and occasionally falling, trying to take me with him, and
I haphazardly fought back, struggling to stay upright and keep him
from slipping. He had to stand alone for a second while I unlocked
the room, a feat he managed by leaning his body against the wall,
pushing his forehead near the doorframe and grimacing.

I kicked the door open,
dragging him inside, where I threw a couple of towels down on the bed
so that the blood wouldn't get everywhere. (I had to sleep
someplace, mind you, and I hadn't fit in the bathtub since I was
ten.) He fell back on them, vomiting more blood while I tossed a
towel at him.

"Ryell's coming
up," I said. "She just went to get some stuff from her room."

He nodded, just before
a fresh wave of red coated his chin. He feebly wiped at it with a
hand towel, but it kept coming up and he found himself powerless to
stop it. And I had a feeling Pepto Bismal wouldn't do any good
against whatever was wrong with him.

So instead I fetched
all the remaining towels, stacking them neatly on the bed, and
proceeded to strip him of his jacket, and I started on his
white-turned-red shirt. He kept trying to undo the buttons, poor
thing, his bloody fingers too slick to hold on to them. So he just
scowled and let me do it, opening his shirt up to reveal his chest.

I'd seen CSI: and
House, MD, but nothing prepares you for seeing lurid carnage in
reality. I mean, I watched a behind-the-scenes thing on how they made
those scenes, using karo syrup and pantyhose stuffed with Styrofoam
for organs, but the real thing was more disturbing than anything I'd
encountered. Lucifer's entire chest was a maze of red, ugly cuts,
patterned so intricately they were like whorls on a fingerprint. Near
his stomach was a particularly nasty one that revealed a curl of what
I thought was pink intestine, threatening to wiggle its way out.

"It's pretty bad,
isn't it?" He vomited up more blood.

"Yeah." No shit,
Sherlock. "Yeah, it's bad, Lucifer." Mouth agape, I reached out
and gingerly touched the area above the one that nearly disembowled
him, his face twitching with the momentary pain. The wound wasn't
healing- it wasn't sealing like his finger had done back at the
house. And there was no smell of death. "Why aren't they fixing
themselves?" I asked.

"Demonic wound," he
answered, despite a great gush of blood in the midst of the word
"demonic." He struggled to finish his sentence. "It doesn't
heal up right away. Lasts longer."

Oh. "What do I do,
then?" I asked. "Holy water?"

He raised an eyebrow.
"That's just water some priest-"

"Save your breath,
Luci. Just tell me what to do."

He frowned at his
nickname, but reluctantly decided to shut up, probably due to the
fact he was tossing up gallons of blood at this point. "Rubbing
alcohol. Under the cabinet. Bathroom."

Mandy had her marching
orders. I returned with the plastic bottle in my hand, unscrewing the
cap. "Do we need a cotton ball or something?"

He laughed, the blood
oozing out of a corner of his mouth. "No, just one of the towels.
Yeah, that's it. Don't just dab the stuff on one corner of it- do
the whole fucking towel."

What? The man was
crazy. I squirted the alcohol over the whole towel and held it out,
like some kind of art project I'd done in third grade. He pointed
to his chest. I almost started to wipe at one of the wounds, but he
snatched it and draped the thing over his full chest.

Which promptly started
to smoke. "Holy fuck," he whispered, tossing his head back. I
snatched the towel off of him, prompting a sharp glare. "What'd
you do that for?"

"You….you were
smoking…" I had paused to stare at the wounds, which had started
to seal up, scabbing over. Reluctantly, I dropped it back on him,
ignoring the smoke and the small shriek he let out. It fizzled out
after about thirty seconds, at which point I pulled it off to reveal
a clean, bare chest (save for the blood smears on it) with only the
faintest of scars. He sat up, wriggling out of his shirt, since I'd
left him still in it, and tossing the ugly thing to the ground.

Lucifer reached for the
bottle of alcohol on the dresser. "Here. Hit me," he said,
showing me his spine and handing it to me. My shaky hands dropped the
towel. "Just squirt it on there. Don't be nervous."

His back was just as
bad as his front. Slashes, looking almost like claw marks, ran up and
down it, twisting and turning like some mad scribble. But the strange
thing were the two long scars, parallel to one another, running down
his back, almost like….

Almost like wings. Or
the part that held them to him.

I started, nervously,
to pour the stuff on him, watching it sizzle and smoke, like some
chemistry lab gone wrong. The flesh scabbed and sealed and bound
together as I did so. "Doesn't this hurt?" I asked him.

"Like a bitch."

I paused, letting
silence fall for a moment, the only noise being the sound of
Lucifer's skin searing. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" he
replied between gasps.

"Leaving."

He shook his head. "You
didn't leave. You came down here. I knew where you were. And you
left me a note. And you were with Ryell. And Vincent." He fell
silent. "Oh, fuck."

"Sorry."

"Not your fault."

I finished up, noting
that some of the wounds ran a little beneath his belt line, and I
decided I'd just give him the bottle and let him sort those out. He
stood up, stretching, and examining my handiwork in the mirror. "This
looks okay, doesn't it?" he said. "I mean, I don't think Eric
will notice."

I grinned a little. He
was still surveying himself in the mirror, apparently unsatisfied
with the way his ass looked in his jeans. "Aright," he began,
"give me that; I'll finish up in the bathroom and take a shower.
If you wouldn't mind, could you run down and ask Vincent for
something to wear? Seeing as…" He pointed to his ruined shirt and
jacket.

I shrugged. "Sure."
Snagging my key, I headed for the door. He caught me just as I was
about to leave.

"Don't get me
anything too stuffy or stiff looking. That boy's wardrobe is so
bland. At least try to get some color, will you? Not too much black?"

I got the sense I
needed to write this down. Did he want fries with that? As he shut
the bathroom door, I slipped out into the hallway, snaking my way
down to Vincent's room. There was no sign of him in the halls along
the way, so I assumed he was either here or with Ryell back at the
Con.

Taking a left down the
hallway, I narrowly avoided colliding with a young man, who had to be
the palest critter I'd ever seen. He had dark blue eyes, and
blackish hair, and a nervous demeanor, and he stammered out excuses
for almost hitting me. "S'okay," I said, starting off, but I
couldn't shake the somewhat cold feeling I'd gotten. He seemed to
radiate it.

I knocked on the door
of his room, hearing muffled footsteps and a soft cry of, "Coming!"
as he answered the door. He pulled it open rather fast, so I got the
sense of urgency. "Oh," he said, sounding crestfallen. "It's
just you, Mandy."

Who did he expect? Mr.
T?

"Yeah, it's just
me," I repeated, slightly confused, as Vincent led me in.

"He needs clothes, I
assume?"

Mind reader. He was
good.

I nodded, and watched
Vincent eagerly tear apart his suitcase looking for some. He pulled
out a pair of jeans, a blouse, and some other things, putting them
into a neat pile on the bed. "How's he doing?" he asked.

"Just fine."

"Did he use alcohol
or mercury?"

"Alcohol."

He laughed. "I know,
it's kind of funny, isn't it? Rubbing alcohol. My mom used to use
that when I'd scrape my knee or whatnot. Never thought it would be
for demonic wounds."

I shook my head and
tried to grin. "Yeah, it seemed a little random." The question
was now burning in the back of my head, and I doubted Vincent knew
the answer any more than I did, but it still couldn't hurt to ask.
"Why is Lucifer being attacked by demons? Or whatever got to him?"

Vincent froze. I'd
crossed some invisible boundary, I knew it. "You'll have to ask
him; I can't tell you that."

I uttered a soft, disappointed, "Oh."

He handed me the clothes. "Ryell'll be by
soon; she'll want to have a word with him, I'm sure."

My head bobbed up and down. "Okay."

He ushered me out the door. "I'll see you in
a little bit, aright? Give Lucifer my regards."

I raised my eyebrow, but he had already shut the
door. I limped back upstairs, unlocking my door and slipping inside
the room, back to the chaos that was Lucifer.

"Oh, dear lord!" he yelled, obviously in
pain. "I think I just made myself a fucking eunuch."

"You poor baby," I chided. He wasn't
amused. After a few more minutes of intense cursing and yelling
(Lucifer had a sailor's mouth, apparently), he started the shower,
and it ran for a good half hour.

Eventually it stopped, and the door opened, his
arm sticking out impatiently for the clothes, which I started to hand
to him, but then yanked away. He whined in protest.

"Just give me the damn clothes."

"Not until you answer a couple questions."

There was a stubborn sigh on the other side of
the door. "Fine."

I sifted through the questions I wanted to ask
him, listing them by importance. The one with the large, red,
flashing lights on it went first. "Who was Madelyn?" I asked.

"A woman. Now give me my shirt."

"Not good enough," I retorted, pulling it
away. "Who was she?"

He snorted. "She was a woman I was in love
with. She died. End of story."

"I know that already. Tell me more."

"Fine. I was desperately in love with her, and
she was with me. We never married, because her parents wouldn't
allow it. She got consumption one year after a bad winter, and she
died, slowly, in great pain, and I couldn't do anything to save
her. And then when she died, I reaped her, and she found out who I
truly was. I offered to give her life, life as a Vulture, because
then we could have been together, but she said no. She said no
because she thought I was a monster and she was scared of me." A
pause. "You happy now?"

Yeah, that definitely warranted a shirt. I handed
him the blouse.

"Any other questions?"

It was time for Double Jeopardy. "Who or what
attacked you and why?"

"Demons. Worthless lot of malformed souls from
hell, who were probably promised a reward if they got me. As for why,
someone sent them."

"Death. The Death. The overseer of this
grand project. And Beelzebub. The whelp of a being I left in charge
of hell while I was gone."

"Who's 'The Death'?" I asked, giving
him his socks.

"Someone you'll hopefully never meet. You got
anything else?"

I was out of ammo. "No. That's it."

The door swung open, revealing six foot Lucifer
with a bemused expression on his face. "Do you want to keep playing
Twenty Questions?" he asked.

I looked down at the floor. "I don't mean to
pry," I said. "I just want to know what's going on."

The bemused expression turned thoughtful. He
strode across the room, sitting on the bed and reaching for his
shoes. He glanced up and saw the post-it on my desk. "You figured
it out, didn't you? Like I said before, you're a smart kid."

Smart was the Asian kid at my high school who had
a four point eight GPA. In essence, smart was not me. "Figured what
out?"

"The link between you and Madelyn."

"Oh. That? Yeah."

"I'm sorry." He shook his head, his damp
auburn hair sticking to his face. "I just wanted to see her again,
to have her… And I fucked up your life because I'm so goddamn
selfish."

Part of me wanted to forgive him. But another
part of me couldn't. I found myself sitting on the bed next to him,
just an undead girl next to the angel of hell. It was like any other
day.

"Death's calling me back, Mandy. My time's
up; I have to go back to here, to Hades. Beelzebub can have hell; I
just have to come back here. You understand, don't you?"

You had me at hello, I thought to myself.
"It's still kind of confusing," I admitted.

"I'm sorry." He tilted his head. "Let me
make it up to you. We'll visit my house while we're down here.
Tomorrow, after you get your scythe."

"You have a house down here?" What kind of
property value could one get down here? Scenic two bed, two bath.
Great view on River Styx. Contact Charon of Pluto Realty for more
info!

He nodded. This was no joke, apparently. "I
lived down here for a long, long time, Mandy. I had to have a nice
place."

He grinned devilishly, and shook his head no. "Of
course I am. The boy's already got a stick up his ass." He
groomed himself one final time before the mirror, and then focused
back on me. "Wanna get something to eat? I'm starving."

"Sounds good," I replied. He smiled at me as
he opened the door.

"Chin up, kid. Things'll be okay," he told
me as we started down the hall.

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